As is well-known, screw caps of vessels, for example bottles, can be closed in rotary machines with several circumferentially arranged closing stations rotating about a common axle, the closing caps each being held in closing heads which are rotated as well as lowered corresponding to the thread pitch after having been placed onto the respective bottle mouth. As an alternative, the bottles can also be correspondingly lifted while the closing cap is being screwed on.
In this context, it is known from patent publication DE 10 2007 057 857 A1 to accomplish the lifting as well as rotation of a closing head during the closing of a vessel by means of a combined linear-rotatory drive.
It is furthermore known from patent publication DE 10 2007 047 742 A1 to measure the torque or the power consumption of a motor for rotating the closure, in particular when a pilfer-proof band provided at the closure is applied, to be able to separately adjust and check the maximum torque when the pilfer-proof band is applied and when the closure is finally tightened.
However, there still is a demand to close vessels with a lower error rate as well as to be able to discharge possibly incorrectly closed vessels from a continuous product stream at a low error rate, in particular using a closing head with a linear-rotatory drive.